


Death of Innocence

by Skyler10



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Light Angst, Pete's World, Pete's World Torchwood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 04:31:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5361470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyler10/pseuds/Skyler10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose Tyler is now working for Torchwood in Pete's World and, like all field agents, must learn to use a gun. She learns the hard way that if she doesn’t use it, lives are lost. So she shoots first now. What would the Doctor say if he were there? (Or rather, what will he say when he is?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death of Innocence

Rose Tyler is working for Torchwood now. And that means playing by their rules.

 

Namely, all Torchwood agents must learn to use a gun, including and especially heiresses appearing out of the blue who have invaluable knowledge of alien contact. Regardless of how many stories she’s told them proving it was a lack of weaponry that had saved her life time and again, she is still required to carry one. That part was non-negotiable. She would enter life or death situations every day. To go in unarmed would be insane. They don't have the Doctor here to make it all ok, as Pete the Torchwood director and protective dad reminded her. They don't have a Time Lord to wield universally recognized authority and to show them how to survive without tools of the trade. He's gone. Forever.

 

So she picks up both her heartache and the loaded weapon and aims at the target. The deafening sound, the kick, the feel of it in her hand reflects her inner storm. She does it again, this time nailing the little solid circle at the center with precision. Though she knows otherwise, she imagines the bullet is powerful enough to destroy a demented pepper pot. And the target is the eyestalk.

 

She rarely misses.

 

To everyone's surprise, she discovers she's good. Properly, really good. All too soon, she is forced to use her weapon in the field when her agents' lives are in danger. Her team is threatened and she is given a horrible choice. She fires. It’s not like killing the devil while escaping a black hole. It’s much more gruesome. The hostile humanoid creature falls, taking her remaining innocence with it. Blood on her hands. Her skin is clean, but it never washes off, no matter how many times the scenario is repeated. Back at HQ, they call it a victory. Her father calls to say he's sorry, but he's also proud. She did what had to be done.

 

It never gets easier on her soul, but it does get easier to guard her emotions, to not let it show. That is, until one cold night she hesitates too long on the trigger. Her favorite rookie goes down. She tells his parents in person. 

 

She knows now why the Doctor runs. And she needs him more than ever. 

 

She takes a leave from the field to work in R&D. She exchanges her handgun for a cannon and although she is still carrying a massive weapon when she finally finds him, this time it is to fight an enemy she knows. An enemy she has no qualms about blasting to a million shards of dalekanium.

 

She's still angry. At the Daleks, of course. But also at herself, for what she has become.

 

And maybe a little at him, for being the voice inside her head that makes her question every day if she is making the right choices, if he would understand. Or if he would be disappointed in the stains on her soul when he taught her a better way.

 

* * *

 

 

They make "home" her flat. They even buy curtains. And life is good. Every night they tell each other a story of when they were apart. But she has yet to tell him about the things she's done. Those killed for her mistakes. The lives she's taken. One day at work he sees the gun assigned to her name and stares hard.

 

He asks her about it instead of telling her a story that night. He's not angry; he just wants to know all of her. She tries to shrug it off, but they both know it's time. She tells him, each line of her years without him somehow drawing her closer to him. Soon, she is shaking in his arms as she relives the horrors of the past. He says he knows what it's like and though her sins are nothing compared to his, selfishly, he's grateful to have someone who understands his darkness. He wishes none of it ever had to happen to her and he's so sorry. He made her into this. A soldier.

 

"No," she argues. "An agent. I chose this life, and it made me… you. A leader. You gave me the strength I needed to survive, Doctor." She gives him a look, a touch, a kiss of such love and empathy that it overwhelms his self-hate. He's trying not to cry now himself as the tears roll down her face. 

 

Some days - not every day - but some, she doesn't want to have to do any of it anymore: the gun, the protocols, the debriefs, the inevitable fall of an agent, the informing of family members. She wishes it was just the two of them and that blue box, travelin' the stars. 

 

But that was dangerous too, he points out.

 

"But we weren't the ones causing it," she sighs. "We were just trying to help. We weren't the ones responsible for their deaths."

 

"I was," he mutters. "You do the best you can, Rose. That's it."

 

"Yeah. But it's never enough is it."

 

* * *

 

 

Some days everybody lives. 

 

Those are the best days. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a drabble I’ve had drafted forever. I meant to post something fun and flirty this week, but this is what came instead. Sorry for the feels. If you need a pick-me-up, check out all my other fic because it’s pure fluffy smutty candy.


End file.
